SAYING GOODBYE- The 2012 edition of the Hurtin' Units has been Yoko Ono-ed. I mentioned in the last posting that Mike and I are the only remaining players from the 2012 Hurtin' Units on the 2013 Units team. Last season, Mike was injured in his first game of the Sunday night youngtimers and I believe he might have played maybe 2 or 3 games with the Hurtin' Units. The Boy was hurt, but like a real trooper managed to show up to most of our games to coach or scorekeep.
I really thought the 2012 edition of the Units was a special group, maybe it was because for the first time, since we joined the league, we played on Sunday in the playoffs and we also made it to the semi-finals. I thought we had a great squad and it surprised me we didn't finish higher in the standings. I went back and looked at our record, game by game, and noticed a couple of things; we got to a bad start, we had some early injuries (Mike), Anicete was playing hurt and this was my first season pitching, which took a bit to figure it out.
I mentioned last season about (10 times), that we were a really Jekyll and Hyde team. Some nights we couldn't string anything together and other nights we were smokin' the ball, but the defense would have a rough night. When I look back game by game it would appear as I'm describing it here.
The Units had 9-13-2 record. We had 11 games where we didn't score more than single digits runs. In our 2 ties we scored a total of 8 runs, 5 in one game and 3 in the other. 8 frickin' runs in 2 games, unbelievable!! In our first 5 games we had 4 losses and one tie, 3 of the losses by a single run.
We had 8 games where the difference in score was 2 runs or less. We had 2 games when we only scored 1 run per game, only 1 run per game, again unbelievable! In the stretch run, the last 10 games of the season, the Units had 7 games when the team scored single digit runs. The runs for average, for the last 10 games was 6.90 runs per game. No team is going to win too many games scoring this many runs per game.
The Hurtin' Units team ERA for the entire regular season was 12.08 per game. I don't really know what the average is for the other teams in the league, but it is probably not much lower. The first half of the season we had some rough times, I struggled pitching in the first half, but started pitching much better in the second half, especially in the last 11 games. I the last 11 games the Units ERA was only 6.0 runs per game, half of the season average. But as I said, we were a real Jekyll and Hyde team and we couldn't get the bats to work in most of these games.
The 2012 Units were a bit of a streaky team also, we had a 2 game winning streak, a 3 game winning streak and we finished the season off with a 3 game unbeaten streak.
The Units had a good playoff run, going to the semi-finals, but it's now time to say goodbye to the 2012 Hurtin' Units and embrace the new team that we drafted for the 2013 season. My thanks go out to the 2012 roster and I wish all of the players the best of luck on their new teams. See you on the field.
SAYING HELLO- So the 2012 Hurtin' Units team is now been put to bed and it's time to move on to the task at hand. I may refer back to the 2012 team from time to time, but there is a new team on the horizon and it's time to focus our energy here. So, what do I think about the team we drafted on April 6th? I think it is the most awesome team I have ever seen. Okay, I might be blowing a bit of smoke here, but I really do think it looks pretty good. I know that most captains on draft day will say they have a pretty good looking team (when I say good looking, I'm referring to baseball talent, not appearance) and for the most part on draft day there is optimism. Hell last season I thought we had the team to contend for the league title and look how that turned out. 
We finished 12th last season, but the 4 teams in front of us only finished a single point ahead. One more win and we would have been in 8th place, 1 point behind the Beer Bros, who won the championship. Last year's team took a little time to come together, I'm hoping for a quicker start this season. Based on what we have on our roster, I would like to think the Hurtin' Units have the best outfield in the 2013 campaign. Now this could be my affinity for the team we drafted, but I really think we could challenge any other team's outfield. 
I went to last year's statistics and recorded what the 2013 Hurtin' Units team hit last season...Ricky Bobby was on fire (no pun intended), second overall in batting. Mikey Boy's average was the lowest of last year's statistics on the team, now let's be fair here, he was hurt from the first game and is really a mucho bettero hitter. I know for a fact that Mikey Boy begged the stats guy to remove his OBA. I know it didn't help our team average. 
I compiled a list of the 2013 roster with each players OBA from last season and there were some pretty nice numbers on the list . Ricky Bobby was outstanding, 2nd in the league in OBA, Phil was in the top 25 in batting, Coxy was in the .700s, Jamie, Richard and Brian were all in the high .600s, Woody was in the high .500s and then there was Vince and myself in the lower .500s. I was really impressed with Brian's numbers .698, this would be 4th on the team. Rick L and Hags didn't play last season, hence no OBA. Mike's numbers are not even worth putting up because of his injury. Mike is usually in the 600s in batting and I expect him to be back there this season.
Our team average would be .635, which would be middle of the pack for last season. Mike's .400 brings down the team average, but if we were to put Mike in the .600 range, where I believe he truly hits, it brings our average up to a respectable .655. It makes the Hurtin' Units a lean, mean hittin' machine.
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